Belconnen
Please find below a brief history of the Jamison group, where we started and what we aim to achieve with your help.
SEE-Change Jamison meets regularly, please contact Rebecca Drew on beckdrew2@gmail.com.
Jamison SEE-Change Footprint Challenge Inc.
The Jamison SEE-Change Footprint Challenge Inc was formed in September 2007 following a public meeting in August, with the following aims:
- To encourage and support action aimed at reducing the ecological and carbon footprint by 30% across the suburbs of Aranda, Cook and Macquarie by 2010.
- To work in close partnership with local and federal governments, schools, clubs and businesses to facilitate this action.
- To monitor the impact of these activities on the footprint of the area.
- To publicise progress.
The board identified a number of planned activities which will be developed in an effort to meet the 30 % target in the short space of 3 years.
Subcommittees with overlapping membership were appointed to develop activities across the 3 suburbs in the following portfolio areas:
- Monitoring progress in meeting the target by developing baseline and follow up measures of energy, and water consumption and estimates of the footprint in the three suburbs over time
- Development of programs in efficient use of energy, solar hot water and solar energy for grid feed-in
- Transport including car pooling, the walking school bus and promotion of use of and supply of appropriate public transport facilities
- Promotion of food choices that favour reduced greenhouse emissions and ecological footprints
- Promotion of policies to conserve and recycle water
- Involvement of schoolchildren of all ages in the challenge
- Enlistment of businesses in the area to share in the challenge
- A communication group which would have responsibility to ensure broad understanding across the local population of the options available to householders and to publicize progress in meeting the target
The committee recognised that active engagement with the whole community will be paramount to its success. A number of strategies for this engagement are being tested. They include a focus on children in the schools and through them, their parents; school soup nights open to the broader community; block and suburb parties , neighbourhood watch bulletins and public meetings and media releases. Word of mouth and neighbourhood networks are seen as essential elements of the new strategy.
Read the Jamison SEE-Change Constitution
Monitoring the Campaign
Part of the stimulus to embark on this campaign was the concern expressed by many ordinary citizens in the area at the size of the average footprint of residents in the Jamison area in comparison to other parts of Australia. Why is our footprint higher than that for adjacent suburbs? Is it within our power to change it by 30% in the short period of 3 years? Which elements are likely to make the biggest difference and how soon?
Measuring progress in the reduction of the suburban footprint is therefore an important part of the project.
We plan to monitor the impact of the campaign in three ways:
- By monitoring the suburb wide use of electricity, gas and water through the supplier of these services (ACTEW-AGL) which has undertaken to provide annual figures of average consumption per household as well as a distribution curve of annual household consumption for each of the three suburbs for the next four years.
- By means of a very simple questionnaire which will be widely distributed across the study area throughout the three years of the project, which will provide a snapshot view of what people think and are doing about the Footprint Challenge.
- By a “before and after” special purpose household expenditure survey on a random sample of householders selected through each of the three suburbs that will enable us to compute the size of the footprint at the commencement of the campaign and at the end of 2010.
Solar Jamison, Why Not?
The Jamison SEE-Change Footprint Challenge Inc (JSCFC) held a public meeting on Wednesday the 24th of October to discuss going solar. more.
"Make The Switch Campaign"
The Board at its first meeting identified electricity efficiency as an area to be tackled immediately with potential early gains. A “Make the Switch and SEE-Change” campaign in schools is encouraging the change to energy efficient light bulbs, through presentation to school pupils. Pupils are being encouraged to take what they have learned from the presentation home, and work with their parents, on the financial and energy savings the family could make. Other changes involving standby lights and planned as early campaign activities.
